Giving Up the Ghost
by Rosage
Summary: Bobby Fulbright/Simon Blackquill. Revealing the layers backfires. Contains major full game DD spoilers, other warnings inside.


_A/N: Thanks to Queenlua for the beta and Lizzledpink for planting the idea about the scar in my head. I'm a bit out of my depth when it comes to the subject matter here and hope it's enjoyed._

_Contains major spoilers, abuse, implied sexual content, power dynamics, and light bondage._

Nighttime, the phantom's learned, is when Simon Blackquill is most vulnerable. By day he's as tight-lipped as ever, and as his months left of life—and the phantom's search for the profile—are slipping away, spending nights in Blackquill's cell is the obvious course of action. The phantom prepares false security footage and a series of arguments, but Blackquill doesn't protest beyond lip service to the possibility of Bobby being fired. The phantom does not, however, prepare for Blackquill interpreting Bobby's pleas to end Blackquill's loneliness as a request for intimacy. In the back of their mind they note the fact that Blackquill readily accepted as he tugs them down by the tie.

The impromptu choreographing, complicated by their mask, reaches a standstill when Blackquill pulls off their left glove. Heart hammering—sheer adrenaline, no emotion—they jerk away, hiding their hands behind their back and planning punishment for both parties.

A frown shadows Blackquill's face; the phantom recognizes that look people get when they do something obviously 'wrong.' Bobby _tsk_s.

"It's rude to remove someone's clothing without asking, Prosecutor Blackquill. Day or night, my gloves of justice don't come off."

Blackquill _hmph_s in response, rotating away and pulling up his knees. The phantom makes no other moves. It's a new moon, the one night when the phantom gets a reprieve from fear, and they aren't willing to take further risks.

xxxxxxx

The week passes, and the phantom stays away. They're wary of another glove mishap, not to mention their mask, and Blackquill doesn't invite them. Neither reference that night; the phantom doubts Blackquill cared and assumes he dismissed it as an irregularity.

On the night of the half moon, Blackquill requests Bobby's presence. The phantom didn't expect it, but they'll take any opportunity to win Blackquill's trust, and Bobby will follow any order to serve.

Blackquill stands in front of his bed, staring at the moon like a caged wolf. It sits behind the cell's window, its brightness one week from a full circle, and a vein in the phantom's hand starts to throb. The window's bars, at least, break up some of the shape.

For several moments, Blackquill doesn't acknowledge them. When he does, it's with a toss of his head. The phantom slides behind him, taking advantage of his clasped hands to slip on a pair of cuffs. Blackquill turns, brow furrowed in either confusion or anger, but rather than protest he smirks and makes some remark about what Bobby is 'into.' Bobby laughs it off.

With Blackquill constricted—and the tazer remote at hand—the dance is far less threatening. The phantom searches for the profile in Blackquill's clothes, but all they earn is a quip that the pat down feels like police procedure; Bobby points out he _is _police and massages Blackquill's knee.

The search failed, they switch their objective to building trust and dominance. Marks litter Blackquill's body, bruises and cuts in varying hues that reveal their layers of years. Bobby fusses, kissing scars with the earnestness of a puppy and promising they'll heal. Blackquill wants something rougher than healing, as his legs communicate as readily as his remarks about a lost cause, and the phantom complies.

Blackquill, for his part, groans complaints while his body urges the phantom on. By the end, numbness covers the phantom's fear and Blackquill seems pleased and eager to engage in banter, despite his constant orders through the act to say quiet.

Sometimes, the phantom wishes they had a psychological profile on Blackquill, whose inconsistencies are more in need of a map than their nothingness. But of course, if they had their profile back, they'd have no need to traverse him.

xxxxxxx

They meet twice more before the moon begins to wane. Blackquill reveals more—sounds that vary like birdcalls depending on where and how he's touched, a preference for hard surfaces—but nothing that discloses the profile's location. The phantom studies the data closely nonetheless.

A slight intake of breath when they unbutton his collar draws their attention to his neck. He lies stiff, his breathing shallow as they touch his pulse, and instinct leads them to rub their thumb in a line around his neck. The haunted look in his eyes brings to mind a noose.

So Blackquill is afraid to die. His morbid jokes hadn't let on.

Blackquill's neck is warm in contrast to the stale cell air when the phantom drags their tongue in that same line. Blackquill shudders this time, his pulse quickening, and the phantom moves on. They don't want to linger on heartbeats.

Nighttime, the phantom's learned, is when they're most vulnerable, least empty and most aware of their emptiness. Perhaps there's a reason they choose to spend those hours with a dead man walking.

xxxxxxx

When they see Blackquill come alive in court, it angers them.

It does…?

Well, if a zombie can be resurrected, a ghost should be able to as well. Bobby pulls out the tazer and the phantom watches Blackquill shrivel as the piece of him that was reborn dies. The anger, the phantom's own brief life, dies with it.

Blackquill eyes them with suspicion upon their next meeting; Bobby makes sure to be especially attentive to his commands, the phantom keeping a thumb on Blackquill's pulse to remind him who's in charge.

Even with tazing, Blackquill's duels with those attorneys energized him. He's more rebellious, his coloring improves, and his hunt for the phantom resumes. The act becomes another way for Bobby to contain him, discipline him, drive his paleness past a healthier peach to flushed, and take his mind off his prey as the phantom can tell from his glazed eyes he does.

The phantom doesn't expect Blackquill to break out of his cuffs—he seems to like them in this context, despite his obvious distaste for them in court. They're busy studying his expressions when he crushes the chain and lunges for the hand on his hip, pulling the glove off before the phantom can react.

Sweat gathers below their mask. The moon is almost full, and its light shines on their hand as Blackquill turns it over.

Seven years have reduced the scar from a mess dripping evidence of their mortality to a raised, purple-patched line. Blackquill rubs his finger over it, causing a tingling sensation that crawls to their shoulders as they realize the pocket the remote is nestled into lies heaped on the ground.

They should pull away, but they're compiling Blackquill's expressions into a profile. Its changes are as subtle as ghosts shifting in the shadows: a corner of lip twitching, a tongue sliding behind his cheek, eyebrows rising and falling in what they hope is curiosity, not suspicion. His palms cradle theirs, his fingers prodding, stroking, and they feel more vulnerable than the day the knife slid through.

Blackquill's eyebrow is arched when he looks up. Bobby knows Blackquill's cues well enough to answer.

"Mishaps happen in the line of justice, Sir. It's a bit embarrassing…"

Blackquill nods and turns his attention out the window, moonlight reflecting off his eye and worming its way under the phantom's skin. They wait for him to release their hand, and he doesn't.

xxxxxxx

Blackquill must have pieced it together during that moon girl's confession. The security footage makes his eyes glaze over, and he doesn't talk, barely twitches when the attorney accuses Bobby. The phantom has no time to waste on Blackquill. The moon is full, and their palms are clammy, and only prudence stops them from fleeing.

The phantom feels nothing when Blackquill professes to believe in them, of course, but that doesn't stop something in them from twisting when they realize he didn't. They can't believe they spent months building an illusion.

That device reaches into them, lays their feelings or lack thereof bare. They pull back the locks on their psyche, directing emotions that have long-since lost their source to mask them, but it's no good. The profile's in the defense's hands; the phantom steals it back. They have no time to read it before they burn it to ash.

They watch the defense team huddle together and whisper, listen to their self-righteous proclamations (how dare they be so confident when the phantom's most empty, speak of trust when it's just been proven impossible?), and, most notably (is it?), watch as what they thought were nights of tearing away Blackquill's mask melt away to reveal his alliance with the one person the phantom fears.

That has to be an illusion, too, they think. They can't be the only apparition.

Moonlight reflects off the girl's earring as the sniper shoots.

xxxxxxx

_He saw my face, _the phantom thinks when they wake.

It's not the most logical reaction; _where is my face, give me back my face, _even _they saw my face_ would be more consistent. But Blackquill seeing them is their first concern, and their chest burns above the abdominal wound.

Their hand feels like it's full of sand. They flex it, regretting the movement when their abdomen clenches. Their scream summons the doctor with some drug.

The next time they wake, they think, _I'm alive_. It's the first time they can remember having the thought. The sun is blinding, but they keep their eyes open to wash out the imprint of the moon.

xxxxxxx

Blackquill drops by to abuse them. His silver tongue convinces the doctors he's the phantom's correction officer, giving him full rein. The irony is worth a joke.

Supposedly he's there to interrogate, but he stands sizing the phantom up. Now that he's seen them, they're acutely aware of their weaknesses—their face, their past, their identity, their humanity (_I'm alive, _the phantom thinks, this time in rebellion), and so his studious gaze is as threatening as if he'd read his conclusions aloud. When he strikes, his aim is as true as a hawk's.

"So…mishap in the line of justice, hm?"

He raises his eyebrow the way he did then, the way the phantom thought might be suspicion but _thought_…and their insides sear.

The reminder of their violation jerks their neck up. Their protest comes out as a croak, the knowledge that they initiated the revealing thrumming in the back of their mind.

"I think we're done here," Blackquill says, his eyebrow still fixed, and the question that comes out when he turns to leave is out of the phantom's control.

"If you hadn't seen it, would you have believed me?"

Blackquill freezes, his face turned away, his hair hiding his neck, leaving nothing for the phantom to interpret. In an icy monotone, he replies.

"No."

He leaves, and the phantom's head drops back on the pillow. It throbs in an echo of the pain from their wound and something clouding their chest.

Trust is an illusion. The phantom knows that very well.

They suppose, however, they'll never understand the things humans have that ghosts lack, no matter how their wounds are laid bare.


End file.
